What Christians do . . .

The second long reading in the Office today, is a reading from one of the homilies of St John Chrysostom.  This reading reminded me of what Fr Alan had said about what Christians should do.

I have given an impression in my previous posts that Christians do nothing in front of God - but I took this extreme view to make the point that we should not always be micro-managing our situations and leave God out in the cold.

Of course Christians should be doing things, such as feeding the poor, loving our enemies, forgiving others etc. 

There are a number of things which Christians should do with great effort. I will discuss three of these today.

Fr Alan said all Christians should pray, fast and give their money away to the poor. All of these would need huge effort on our part.

We need huge effort to get up in the middle of the night to pray, and sit in silence in front of God without going to sleep during our prayer. 

We need huge effort to fast, such as not eating meat on Fridays or going without food during Lent. Then what do we do with all the money saved from fasting. We give this money away to the poor.  Fr Alan said by the end of Lent, our purses should be empty of money - meaning we have given away all our money in our purses. 

Fr Alan said even if we do not have any money, we still need to give our money away.  Fr Alan said almsgiving covers a multitude of sins. Fr Alan said almsgiving bona fides our prayers and fasting. 

I remember saying this to someone and the person asked how could one give away money one does not have in the first place?

Now you can see why we need a huge effort to give our money away to the poor. 

This morning second long reading from St John Chrysostom discusses the five high roads to repentance, which are acknowledging our sins, forgiving the sins of others, fervent and diligent prayer - praying from one's heart, giving away our money to the poor and humility.

St John Chrysostom has said even if one is poor, one can lay aside anger, carry oneself humbly, persevere in prayer and acknowledge one's sins. St John Chrysostom has written that poverty cannot be an obstacle for not giving away one's money away to the poor.  Do you remember the poor widow giving away her money to the Temple treasury? [Mk 12 and Lk 21]

Do you understand why Fr Alan said even if you are poor, you have to do almsgiving?

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, help us to get real, stop us from pretending to be good Christians and teach us to really enter into deep prayer and fasting, and giving our money away to the poor. Amen.